XBOX 360 Red Ring Of Death

Microsoft's Xbox 360 was released on the 22 November 2005.  This was the second generation machine created by Microsoft.  The Xbox 360 had better performance better graphics and more interactive features so it was aiming to be the best gaming console released.

However,  Microsoft,  like many other companies,  did not realise with all this better performance came at a cost.  Not long after its release,  people were encountering failures in their consoles,  most commonly being 3 red lights instead of a green light when you turn the machine on.  This soon became known as the common red ring of death error.
At first Microsoft were very quiet about this failure,  but not long after so many complaints, Microsoft did admit there were bad problems with the design and parts used in the console and started offering customers a 3 year warranty on any red light problems,  which I think was better than nothing, a lot better than what Sony offered with the ps3.
So what causes the red ring of death on the Xbox 360?  Well,  in February 2003,  the European Union adopted Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive or ROHS which meant that in the production of the Xbox 360,  Microsoft had to use lead free solder on their components instead of a much more robust leaded solder.
Unlike,  for example,  a desktop computer,  the CPU chip has pins and is locked into a socket on the mother board.  The Xbox 360 uses components called BGA chips (Ball Grid Arrays).  These have  hundreds of very small solder balls on the underside of the chip which are then bonded to the board to make connections to all the small pads, this in turn sends all the information through the bus lanes on the mother board.
Below is a picture of an Xbox 360 GPU BGA chip which we have removed from a mother board  and re balled.   The GPU chip has 1,089 0.6mm lead free solder balls.

Below is a picture of an Xbox 360 mother board with the GPU BGA removed.  If you look closely you can see all the small pads where the solder balls would connect to the board, and you can see all the little lanes running from the individual pads.  Some go to the ram bricks and some go to the CPU, these are known as bus lanes.

So why does the Xbox 360 has such a massive fail rate?  The main factor is that Microsoft have to use   lead free solder on the BGA chips.  This does not stand up very well to the temperature changes and overtime can develop dry joints.  Some of the solder balls get cracks and hairline fractures and can even bond with another ball.

If any of these things happen to any of the 1,089 balls on the GPU,  then that will produce a red light error.  Nearly all of the red light errors you can get with the Xbox 360 are linked to the GPU.  The GPU is the chip on the board that uses the most power.   As with a games console it's all about graphics,  so this chip comes under the most stress temperatures

So how do you fix this problem?  Well,  here at Click Repairs Southport,  we use state of the art equipment,  namely a jovy re 7500 which is a BGA rework machine.  There are 2 methods to fix the Xbox 360.  The first is a Reflow.   This involves heating the GPU chip up to certain temperatures so the solder underneath  melts and reflows itself to reform the balls again.  This will fix 90% of red light errors.  The second is called a reball, which involves removing the chip and then removing the old lead free solder balls.  Using a stencil and a  re ball rig,  we can re ball the chip with leaded solder balls and then bond back to the board.  This is considered more of a permanent fix.
Below is a picture of our Jovy re7500 in our workshop.

Reflow an Xbox 360.

If the reflow of the GPU is done right the first time,  there is no reason why the console will not last well over a year before it will develop any more red light issues.   To most people it is the way to go.  Theory states that lead free solder has a melting point of 217C so the ideal temperatures for a successful reflow is between 220C and 235C.  However,  there are many different factors to take in to consideration when reflowing Xbox 360 boards like;  room temperature and how long  the Xbox been unused for.   For example,  if the Xbox 360 has been unused for a long time i.e months,  the boards can develop moisture and they would need to be baked first to remove any moisture on the board.
Also using a good quality flux when reflowing the chips is essential.   This helps the solder reform properly.

Re Ball an Xbox 360.

Then you need to bond the chip back onto the board with a leaded temperature profile and complete the re ball process.

Xbox 360 DVD Drive Issues.

The Xbox 360 uses a dual layered DVD drive and laser to enable the user to play their games and watch DVD's, it is not capable of playing or watching blu ray discs.  The technology in the drive is more or less the same you would find in your laptop or computer dvd player in regard to the laser, but the way the data is transferred is allot different and there are security measures in place to ensure that the user only uses original xbox 360 games.

Problems with the xbox 360 dvd drive can range from not being able to read games (open tray error) to the laser burning perfect circle burns on games discs.
There are 4 main different dvd drives found in the xbox 360.

Hitachi-LG GDR-3120L Drives and different FW revisions:
46,47,58,59,61,78 and 79.

Toshiba-Samsung TS-H943 drives and FW revisions:
Ms 25, Ms 28a and Ms28b

Philips-BENQ/LiteOn VAD6038/1650V  drives and FW revisions:
62430CR, 64930C

Philips-LiteOn VAD6039/DG-16D2S drives and FW revisions:
74850C v1/v2, 83850C v1v/2, 93450C

Philips-LiteOn DG-16D4S drives and FW revisions:
9504c

Here at click repairs we can fix any problems you may encounter with your xbox 360 dvd drive.  We can replace lasers and even replace your whole drive with a brand new drive.
The main problems with the DVD drives are the drive not being able to read games, this is normally due to the laser losing its power and not being able to read the games properly. 
There is a way to repair the lasers without replacing them this method is called pot tweaking.
This is something that the home user could try with the use of a multi meter and small screw driver and we do practice this at click repairs, however the time involved tweaking the DVD pot is not productive compared to just replacing the laser with a new one.

If your whole DVD drive needs replacing it is not as simple as just putting a new DVD drive in there, there are security measures to consider before doing this.
Each DVD drive has a firmware with a unique DVD key that is flashed to the MT chip on the circuit board and this DVD key has to correspond to the key that is stored in the nand chip on the xbox 360 motherboard if these keys do not match then the xbox 360 will not play any games just DVD films.
At click repairs we have the skill and equipment to perform this kind of repair by reading you DVD key of your drive and reflashing it to another new drive to solve any issues with your current drive.

If you have any other issues with your xbox 360 console then please get in touch and our experienced engineers will be able to help you with any problems you have.

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Coming Soon . . .